What the heck just happened.. ?!

[Patrick Sullivan]

Not quite sure what just happened.. driving home from work, and everything gets REAL BRIGHT all of a sudden.. ammeter pegged to the right. My headlights blow out, so I'm driving down the highway in the dark and I can't see a thing.. but I'm scared so I just speed up and hope I get home.. I can smell burning stuff, and of course I don't have a fire extinguisher with me, so I go even faster.. my guages all still work except for my temp guage which was slowly pegging to the right, which is wierd, since I don't think my engine was getting any hotter.. coming close to home, and the engine just about dies on me.. no gas response at all.. I make the final turn, and the truck is bearly idling.. any gas would make it backfire and chug, but it was idling fine.. get home, pop the hood, one of the positive wires from my battery is COMPLETELY melted through.. it's the one that goes to the wierd plastic thing on the fender, that apparently all the accessories run off of? Something like that.. anyway..

I suspect something shorted out, which made my (new) alternator go crazy and charge like it had never done before.. which in turn started melting things.. but I didn't blow a single fuse? And the only lights I blew were my headlights.. orange lights and side markers are (I think) still working.. and my temperature guage is STILL pegged, even with the battery totally disconnected.

Now.. what the hell?!?!

Sorry for the unorganized message, but I'm still shaken up, hahah.. thought it was gonna catch fire or something. I have noticed the ammeter bouncing around when running the truck before.. was that a harbringer of doom?